| First, the updates to the old maps:
   
Click to enlarge.
Can't really see Guam too well at this scale.... but we're getting a lot closer to coloring in the map of the US though!
Guam
As we watched returns from Guam trickle in, names like Yigo and Barrigada suddenly became a lot more common in the blogosphere. How could one district go so heavily for Obama and another - the very last district, the biggest - nearly wipe out his lead? The island's only a few miles wide, fer cryin' out loud!
So here's a couple maps of one major demographic difference I found correlated with Obama's performance:
 
Click to enlarge.
The major ethnic groups on the island are Asian and Pacific Islander. Obama tended to better in the districts with large proportions of Pacific Islanders. Then again, Obama did lose in American Samoa... but it was a very low-turnout caucus. Aren't those supposed to favor Obama? Well, that's another diary.
Cities and schools
Now, a close-up of the east, where we just had two contests and have one next week, along with a few key demographics. First, on the left, the percent of the population with a college education. On the right, the total population of each county. In the middle, the Obama-Clinton map.
  
Click to enlarge.
The islands of higher education often, but not always, coincide with urban counties. Strength in either demographic tends to lead to an increase in support for Obama. Indiana is a textbook case: can you find the major universities in Indiana? And Indianapolis? Gary?
Race and ethnicity
On the left, the percent of the population that identifies its ethnicity as 'American' in the census. On the right, the percent who identify as African-American. In the middle, the Obama-Clinton map again.
 
Click to enlarge.
Clinton tends to do very well where people self-identify as American; Obama (with some help from Clinton) has consolidated support in the African-American community.
Looking at these maps, it's pretty clear what will happen in West Virginia and Kentucky.
Identity Politics
We've heard a lot about identity politics this year, but there's many ways identity can play on the field of politics. Some, I would argue, are really quite positive, others are obviously negative.
The Ugly. Racism and misogyny have been playing a role for a number of voters, sadly. There's a fair number of people, in polls or in person, who actually admit to refusing to vote for a woman or African-American. And the maps above have made us very suspicious - is Clinton getting such strong support in Appalachia because she's not black? There is no way to tell for sure how much of a role racism and misogyny are playing, although experience and anecdote tell us it is playing a role. The exit polls ask if race or gender is a factor, but even those who vote for Clinton because she's white may be doing so because they sincerely believe this country will never elect a black man. That is not blameless, but it's not the same as hatred or supremacy either.
On the Good Side. And of course the other way identity can play a role is a positive association. At its most reductionist this is 'Women vote for Clinton' and 'Blacks vote for Obama' - which leads to claims of racism on the part of blacks and, what would it be? misandrony? on the part of women. There's no denying that humans are tribal critters and like to associate with people they think are like them, and proudly vote for memebers of their tribe, but there is something else going on too, I think, whether consciously or unconsciously - the 'Walk in My Shoes' factor. When a politician can 'connect' or 'feel your pain' or 'appeal' to a group - part of it, in my opinion, is simply that if folks think a politician has had similar experiences to a voter, the politician might be more likely to understand and be able to solve the problems that voter has.
So Clinton, by this reasoning, appeals to women - especially women of her generation - not just because she's a woman, but because she knows what it's like to have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition, and she knows what it's like to be damned for not baking cookies. She knows these things, yes, because she is a woman, but it is the fact that she knows them that is important. And despite being the Senator from New York, she is a Clinton, and that means Arkansas. So she should appeal to folks from Arkansas through the Appalachians because she has experience in the culture and knows what folks are going through. So would go this line of reasoning.
How much of Clinton's appeal in this region is positive and how much negative? One thing we can do is look at general election polls. Back of the envelope estimates show that about 25%-50% of the white Democrats in this region will vote for McCain over Obama. This the maximum for how many Democratic voters won't vote for a black man. For comparison, about 30% of Appalachian white Democrats also voted for Bush in 2004. (Can we even call them Democrats?? Are these Dixiecrats who still haven't converted to Republican?) What we really would like to do is redo the election with Hillary Clinton versus, say, Barbara Boxer. Now it's just a guess, but I'm guessing Clinton would still sweep the Appalachians against Boxer; I assume Boxer would do better than Obama, though, and those would be the people who are voting primarily on race. Sadly, we can't run that experiment and find out, so we will never know the extent that racism has played in the primary process.
Turns out, we do have something of a control group to look at: the Republicans. There's lots of flaws, but there was a folksy Arkansas governor in the race. How did he do? Meng Bomin has the map (I strongly encourage you to click through, it's a diary that didn't get half the attention it deserved):
 
Click to enlarge.
On the left, results for Huckabee. On the right, a black and white version of the county-level Cliton-Obama map. See anything familiar in Appalachia? We can conclude that the pattern of Clinton's support in Appalachia is consistent with positive support for an Arkansan. Even for those who may have had race as a motivation, it might not have been the primary motivation.
Now what about Obama? On the negative side, there's a certain percent of Democrats who say they won't vote for Clinton but will vote for Obama in the general. That sets the maximum who won't vote for a woman at 12% of Democrats nationwide, but we know that includes a fair number of African-Americans and other supporters who would consider the primary to have been stolen by Clinton at this point. And we can't break things down by region, and I haven't seen numbers broken down by gender. It'd be nice to redo the election with Senator Michelle Obama versus Hillary Clinton to see what happens.
On the positive side, Obama may appeal to Pacific Islanders because he seems more likely to pay attention to them, given that he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He has been an organizer in an urban, African-American community: we see he has strong support in cities, and among activists and African-Americans. And young people see that he had to pay off college loans and took a while to land on his feet, not to mention he seems to take them seriously. And those of us who feel like outsiders, who have been told for decades we're not Real Americans because we're not blue-collar straight white men who disdain education and like to eat junk food, watch football, and kill things - well, some of us see an Obama who's been an outsider no matter where he went, and who, when he talks about the United States of America, might, for once, actually mean it.
Cross-posted at DailyKos. |
